In rock music, you'll hear few "buts" and many "ands" for the same reason: "And" opens the mind, moves it; "but" shuts it down, evokes judgment in the listener.
Dare to be Shakespeare. Afraid of poetry? Get over it. The simplest, most connective language is poetry. Look at Springsteen's "Land of Hope and Dreams," which is full of poetry. Or take, for example, something that Jobs once said: "There are so many exciting things in our headlights that will take us through the next two to three years. Only after that will we start to send people out into the darkness." That is pure Abe Lincoln.
It's amazing to think that our rational, clear, beloved English is really a series of magic spells. But consider this: Linguistics professors tape ordinary speech and then play it back so slow and loud that you think you're in a Tibetan temple. At the level of pure sound, all conversations mutate into "om," or some gong-toned, muscle-deep, throbbing chant.
It's eerie. We are all singing a religious song -- even when we are asking for a second martini.
The most followed leaders are romantic poets whose songs have bled off the page and into life. What a great excuse leadership is: You can sing -- even if "in real life" you're just a doctor, a lawyer, or an Indian chief. Sing your heart out. Others will follow.
Harriet Rubin (Hrubin@aol.com) is the author of The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women (Doubleday, 1997) and Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambition (Harpercollins, 1999).
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